Thanks for the advice, jpappy. I was iffy on shell dwellers, and now I'm leaning towards one very nice, happy fish if possible. As for rams, I've kept one in a 10 long-term without troubl with glass shrimp for tank mates. It's likely that the planting and high filtration helped out some. He was very happy until I decided to put him in with the aforementioned kribensis in my 33g.
Lexi, the fish you have mentioned there is definitely on my list of possibilities. glad to hear it brought up. I'm not looking to breed fish, but rather to put something other than the typical line of newbie fish and inverts. Here's the list of fish I've been trying to work out/research:
(My favorites have *'s)
Tanganyika:
*Cyprichromis leptosoma "malasa"
Julidochromis ornatus
Julidochromis transcriptus "gombi"
*Julidochromis dickfeldi
"Lamprologus" ocellatus "gold"
"Lamprologus" stappersi
Neolamprologus cylindricus
Neolamprologus buescheri
Neolamprologus pulcher "daffodil"
Neolamprologus sp. "helianthus"
Neolamprologus gracilis
Spotfin Goby Cichlid (Tanganicodus irsacae)
Malawi:
*Pseudotropheus demasoni
Pseudotropheus pulpican
Metriaclima sp. "mbweca"
Pseudotropheus sp. "kingsizei lupingu"
Cynotilapia afra
Victoria:
*Pundamilia nyererei
Lithochromis rufus
"Haplochromis" sp. "ruby green"
*"Haplochromis" sp. "kenya gold"
"Haplochromis" sp. 44
*"Haplochromis" sp. “dayglow”
All of them are under 3.5 inches, most being 2.5-3in. Their level of activity is the big knowledge gap that's driving me nuts. It's easy to get arbitrary reccomended tank size answers from google, but the problem is most sites are notoriously poorly sourced. Most don't even justify their statements in the most basic ways.*insert rantings about how the internet used to be for research* Anyhow, I figured I'd ask on here to see what people have done, what works, and what doesn't.
On a final note, I might sell my soul for a demasoni or Pundamilia nyererei that would live happily as the sole denisen of the 10g. I find it unlikely that they would, but I just have to ask.